I grew up listening to bluegrass and real country music.  My father played guitar, played in a band, and regularly had other musicians over to play.  I played music since I was a child and got a mandolin while in high school.  Since then I have played guitar, banjo, and mandolin. 

I began doing woodworking as an unintended career in 1974, building custom furniture and cabinets.  In the late 1970's, I built about 35 instruments: guitars, mandolins, and banjos.  I realized that playing an instrument was critical to knowing how to build one, not just to know how it should sound but also to know how it should feel when you play it.  Then I drifted away from building instruments for a while (20 years).  A few years ago I really fell in love with the mandolin and started building them again.  Since then I have also started building mandolas and recently have begun building acoustic guitars again.

My shop is in what was the Wurlitzer factory in DeKalb, IL.  Wurlitzer built organs and pianos in this building for over 100 years before leaving about 1970.  My shop has been here since 1976.  So the tradition of building musical instruments in this old building continues.  In fact, Clifford Alexis, internationally known steel drum maker, also has a shop in this building.